


a simple hope to keep

by ilovegoats123



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: M/M, Soulmate AU, friends to soulmates!!!!, lots of angst with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 10:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30087942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovegoats123/pseuds/ilovegoats123
Summary: Was Felix wrong? Did they share emotions?Is Chris okay? Does he feel like this too?What is this pain for?
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix, Han Jisung | Han/Hwang Hyunjin, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Felix
Comments: 13
Kudos: 149





	a simple hope to keep

**Author's Note:**

> hi! sorry for posting half of this on a different account and then deleting it!!! here's the whole thing thank you for bearing with all my little whims! 
> 
> as always i want to thank jen & nikita for helping me actually give this a plot ♡  
> and of course thanks tiffany for reading over this fic and listening to me talk about it. as well as for writing the fic that is best friends with my fic, [tethered](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27612317), which you should read if you want to cry some more about chanlix being soulmates. 
> 
> love you all thanks for being my friends!!!

It’s always nice when Chris calls, though it’s not the same as seeing him in person. He’s so bright and warm in person, always beaming and giggling, but is kind of washed-out and pale and cold on Felix’s screen. Something important gets lost in the camera. 

But his voice is just as comforting, bouncy and sweet and loving, holding Felix in his cupped palms with it. And of course it’s good seeing his face, hearing how he’s been, talking easily, a bit like they’re in the same place. It doesn’t quite scratch the itch, but it’s nice. 

Felix always knows when he’s about to call. He’s never been wrong before, except once, and it made him so worried that he called Chris after five minutes. It was nothing — Chris answered like, “Oy, Little One! I was just thinking about calling you, that’s crazy.” 

Crazy, definitely. He tries not to be so obvious about it now. 

Felix’s phone lights up, of course, a facetime from Chris. The contact photo is them together last summer, some wasted beach day or other. Felix is ready, but he lets it ring for a few seconds before picking up. 

The video loads and Felix smiles and waves hello. 

Chris is at his desk in the house that he lives in with some other guys from his uni. He’s wearing a black t-shirt and a black baseball cap. Even though the video makes him look a bit sunken, he’s very handsome; it always hits Felix again, as if he hasn’t spent most of his life looking at Chris. He’s handsome in an unassuming way, but it gets more and more obvious as he gets older. He grows into his big nose and goofy grin, he fills out his frame, he holds himself up with more confidence. He’s tapping at his phone screen like he’s not sure if it’s on. Ah, it’s good to see him. 

“Can you hear me?” Chris asks. 

Felix laughs. “Yes, hi.” 

“Oh, hi!” Chris laughs too, waves enthusiastically and leans back in his chair. “Sorry, sorry. Hi. Is this a good time?” 

“Yep, I’m just doing homework.” 

“Cool, cool. Me too, but I was getting fried. Good time for a break. It’s great to see you. How are you?” 

Felix makes himself smile really sincerely. “Great,” he says. He isn’t great; at best, he’s hanging on, but Chris can’t know about all that. “Just finishing up this reading. Me and Jisung are going out later.” 

“Ah, I thought you looked a bit dressed up.” 

“You like the makeup?” Felix asks, tilting his face to show off. 

“Absolutely. You’re killing it.” Chris does a big thumbs up. He’s silly. “Hope you have lots of fun. Tell Jisung hi, yeah?” 

“Yeah, of course. I’m sure he says hi, too.” 

“Are you rushing out?” Chris asks. 

Felix shakes his head. “Nah, he’s supposed to come get me at like three. And what about you? What are you doing with this lovely Friday afternoon?” 

Chris hums. “Ah, nothing fun. Just the usual. Lots of homework, but, you know, I’m managing.” 

Felix nods. Chris’ workload has been insane this semester, relentless. It seems almost physically unmanageable, but Felix can’t bring himself to feel that bad for him. Chris made his choices about all that. He says, “You’ll get through it. And hey, winter break soon, right?” 

“Yeah, soon,” Chris says. Then, shifting awkwardly, “Uh, actually. I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.” 

Felix looks impassively at his screen. It’s not quite the same as eye contact. 

Chris says, “I’m planning on coming home, still.” 

Felix isn’t going to tell him not to, because telling Chris to move in the first place was a stupid, stupid thing to do. But he still isn’t going to beg. Measured, he says, “That’s up to you.”

Chris sighs. He sucks his cheeks in for a second, considering. He says, “Is it okay with you?” 

Felix sighs. “Of course it is, Chris.” 

“Alright,” Chris says. “I mean, I know it’s okay. But I just, I wouldn’t want to, I don’t know. Like, bother you, I guess. If it would be better for me to stay, I can stay. I have stuff I can do here.” 

Felix rolls his eyes. “You don’t bother me,” he says. “Obviously.” 

“Okay,” Chris says. “We can hang out as much as… as you want. Or as little. No pressure. If you need space.” 

Stupid Christopher. Makes it so hard to keep seeming happy sometimes. But Felix manages to say it sweetly, not suddenly choked-up at all. “Yep. We’ll see how it goes.” 

♡

Jisung doesn’t actually end up picking Felix up. He was held up doing one thing or another, as usual, had to rush home and asked Felix to meet him there. Now Felix is sitting on his bed while Jisung picks something to wear from a huge pile of clothes on the floor. 

Jisung’s having trouble choosing, looking at his heap with wide, lost eyes. One skinny leg is splayed out on the floor, the other foot tucked under him, a beanie half on his head. He’s pawing around, saying, “When did I get so many shirts?”

“You shop all the time,” Felix laughs. “You buy clothes like every time we hang out.” The amount of stuff Jisung has amassed in the last six months is really impressive. 

“The good Australian prices get me,” Jisung confirms with a powerless look. “Felix, this is too many clothes.” 

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Felix laughs. He scoots off the bed onto the floor next to Jisung and starts digging around with him. “You like this shirt,” he says, holding up a black graphic t-shirt that Jisung’s worn soft. “Wear this.”

“But you look too good,” he says, looking up at Felix with big eyes. “Nobody will know we’re together.” 

Aw, that’s charming. Felix makes a silly face and reaches out idly to move a piece of hair off Jisung’s forehead. He says, “You’re handsome when you’re just you, I think.” 

Jisung smiles sweetly for a second, then leans the rest of the way in to kiss Felix quickly. When he pulls away, he says, “Then I guess I’ll just wear this.” 

Yep. He’s holding up the shirt he always wears. Felix finds him very cute. 

Jisung is like this with everything. He’s an explosion of a person. A million shirts on the floor, but he still chooses the one he always wears. His food’s always already gone. He’s always hurrying off somewhere, or just back from somewhere. When he told Felix he liked him, it was like he’d just thought of it. They’d only hung out a couple times, but it was cool, because Felix hadn’t been totally sure if they were dating either.

Jisung is an international student who needed some English practice when he got here, and Felix thought he was nice and sort of spoke Korean, which was a fun excuse. They had a class together, so they met up and studied, met halfway and made each other laugh even when they couldn’t find the words. Though, not having words is rare and getting rarer; Jisung’s jumped into getting really fluent in English, picked up words like a vacuum cleaner. If he wants to do something, he just does it. It’s great. 

At first, they’d study together at a cafe, maybe go for food after. They hung out until late talking in Jisung’s room one night. Then they ditched the idea of studying at all one Saturday, decided just to hang out. “It’s still practice,” Jisung said, defending the idea of an afternoon of window shopping. “We’re still practicing.” 

“I’m showing you around,” Felix said easily. “It’s cultural exchange.” 

They kissed that afternoon, after Jisung tangled his fingers with Felix’s in his favorite record store. 

Jisung makes it easy. He’s fun and loud and he likes Felix _so_ much. He shows it in ways that are weird and sweet and unexpected: arriving with takeout from a restaurant Felix said he’d take Jisung to sometime. Saying, “that’s us” about everything (two painted rocks in someone’s yard, two enemy characters in a superhero movie, two kids using sticks to swordfight, a picture of two frogs on a leaf). Everybody Jisung knows already knows about Felix before they meet. They already recognize him, so Jisung must talk about him when he isn’t there. 

It’s refreshing how Jisung just says what’s on his mind, unfiltered. He’s a bit, just a bit like Chris in that way, though Jisung’s more chaotic, everywhere at once, where Chris is very focused. They just both have the thing where they can’t keep it inside. Maybe Felix is drawn to that, since there are so many things he doesn’t say.

♡

When it comes to soulmates, you have to make a choice. You either stay with them, or you don’t. There’s nothing in between. 

If you sever the tie, you have to do it completely. Apparently it’s one of the hardest things in the world to really achieve, but if you can, you’ll be alright. In a year or maybe two, you’ll be back to your old self, and you might even meet another soulmate someday, though that’s not common. Still, it’s hopeful for people who meet in circumstances that don’t make sense — traveling internationally, for example, or when already partnered. For people whose soulmate is a different religion or race, or the same sex, or from the other side of a barrier like language or war. Historically, more has kept people apart than distance. But the sooner you walk away, the faster you can go back to normal. 

The easier choice by far is following the bond wherever it takes you, because there is no place like the home you can make in a person who understands you completely. It’s not without its challenges, but the obviousness of it is hard to resist. Love is the strongest force alive. 

Put simply: you have to choose one or the other. Allowing it to linger with no satisfaction is not an option. Allowing the bond to exist is the same as nurturing it, but being away from the touch of your soulmate for too long is unhealthy. 

They call it _soulmate withdrawal_. There are drugs for it now, for people who have to be apart for a long time. The recommendation remains: just, don’t. 

As far as Felix knows, you can’t die from the withdrawal, but it can be really, really shitty. It’s different for everybody, sometimes like a constant low fever, headaches, nausea, sometimes more violent illness. 

For him, it’s an ongoing tiredness that started not long after Chris left and got worse over time. A heaviness to his limbs, a stickiness to his thoughts, reluctance to come unglued. A momentousness to every task that made it hard to move forward. For a while, he fought it, but eventually it slowed him down. 

His parents noticed when he stayed home from school one day and wouldn’t explain why. Grades are really important in his house, maybe more important than how you’re feeling. His mom insisted he go to a doctor, explained his symptoms over his head, like he was a kid and not a nineteen year old who could say his own words. 

“He’s not eating, he’s been getting really quiet. And he skipped school the other day, said he couldn’t get out of bed.” 

Felix didn’t realize it was so obvious, but he was getting too tired to lie. 

The doctor went through a list of questions with Felix. Lost pleasure in things you used to enjoy? Yes. Trouble thinking clearly? Yes. Persistent bad mood? Yes. 

All in all, it took about ten minutes, and Felix walked away with a prescription for antidepressants. They actually seem to be helping, so he’s not complaining. 

Since he and Chris aren’t actually soulmates, it’ll probably go away on its own at some point. As soon as his mind realizes that it did the wrong thing, he’ll heal without having to break the tie completely, he thinks. Removing Chris from his life completely would be worse than the fatigue. Anyway, it could be uni stress that’s causing it, or making it worse, as much as anything else. The meds and some tylenol keep him on his feet. It seems like it isn’t getting worse anymore. 

Some days are hard, though. He’s got mornings when getting up is physically painful, evenings when he can’t think clearly enough to get through his work. Always with an aching chest like his ribcage is a rusted gate being pulled open, and the knowledge of exactly what would make it better. A hug from the one right person would make him feel like he was standing upright again, not always navigating choppy water just barely too deep to stand on the bottom. 

♡

That day, six months ago, when Felix went to ask Chris if he felt it too, Chris said he was thinking of moving to Brisbane. 

That was not what Felix was expecting to hear, to say the least. It was so shocking that he floated above his body for a second, not even sure what Chris meant. 

“They have the best music program in the country,” Chris was saying. 

Felix was able to say, “But don’t you think you would miss me?” 

“Of course I would,” Chris said without hesitation, concern cracking open his face. “I would miss you, like, so much. I’d think about it every day. You’re my favorite person.”

He had meant it, of course, but… Ugh. Felix couldn’t just say it outright. “I would miss you so much,” he pushed out dryly. Almost, he said, _too much_. 

That’s what he wanted to hear Chris say. I would miss you too much. I need to be beside you. I hear your thoughts. Leaving you is not an option, physically. 

Instead he said, “It would be really hard, right?” 

“Yes,” Felix said. He still couldn’t believe that Chris was even talking about this. 

“I could stay, if, if,” Chris was trying, but he wasn’t exactly getting there. And that was all Felix needed to hear. 

“You want to go,” Felix said at the same moment he realized it was true. 

Chris said, quiet, nervous, with wide eyes imploring, “What do you want me to do?” 

Felix couldn’t beg. If Chris was still trying to decide, then this whole thing wasn’t what Felix thought it was. Because if it were Felix, there would be no question. He simply would not leave Chris behind. He wouldn’t dream of it.

“Do you not already know?” Felix asked in a hoarse whisper. 

“I can’t stay if it’s not,” Chris started, then he struggled for words. “I can’t stay because you’re my friend, right? That’s not a good reason to pass up something that could be really cool.” 

Felix felt so stupid as the truth tore open, unceremonious and ragged. He was just a kid with a crush that he thought was the world. A tear fell down his face. “I want you to choose what you think is best,” he muttered. He wished that he was what was best. 

“Hey, don’t cry,” Chris said, reaching out to rub Felix’s back. His hands were so nice, so warm. The comfort spread down from his fingertips to cover Felix’s ribcage like wax, more comforting than anything else in the world. The safety of it threatened to trick him, but Chris was thinking about leaving him, so only Felix probably felt warm like that. 

Felix shrugged effortfully out from under Chris’ hands and said, “I guess you should just go to Brisbane.” 

“Is that what you want?” Chris said. He sounded really upset. 

Felix said, “Yeah, go to the uni you want to go to. Don’t let me stop you. Don’t let me keep you from doing cool things.” 

“I don’t… I haven’t decided yet,” Chris said, and it sounded like he was begging for something, but Felix had heard all he needed to hear. 

“I want you to go,” Felix said. He wiped his wet face off on the top of his sleeve. “Actually, I want you to go. That’s what I want you to do.” 

Chris said, “Okay,” and Felix avoided his eyes until Chris just left. 

♡

There is something so humiliating about having your heart broken by someone who loves you. After Chris left, Felix felt like the smallest person alive, walking around on the moon.

So much for… all of it. So much for what Felix thought reality was.

He couldn’t decide if he had invented everything, or if it was real, and he was alone in feeling it. It had happened strangely after all, growing slowly and quietly until one day Felix couldn’t ignore it anymore, a pearl unearthed, glowing and perfect. Usually, it hit people all in a moment. But usually people weren’t already best friends with their soulmates. 

He couldn’t decide which was worse. If he had invented it, then he was actually delusional. There’s a link between minds that grows between soulmates, and Felix had been sure they had it. He knew when Chris was about to text. He knew when he was nearby. They went to sleep at the same time and woke up at the same time, even when they were far away. He hadn’t felt Chris’ emotions yet, but that was supposed to come in last. 

Maybe being insane would be better than what he suspected was the real truth. That he had formed the bond with Chris, but Chris didn’t have it back. 

Things like that happened sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. Anything could go wrong. Brains are so fragile, mistaking signs for other signs, and Chris had been kind to Felix for years and years. Felix had always loved him, admired him, looked up to him. He’d always had an innocent crush, since he was 13 and Chris was 15, coming over to study with Felix’s big sister. Felix would awkwardly sidle into the living room, and Chris would be like, “Oy, Felix! What’s up, little bro?” and beckon him over, and Felix would just sit around and listen to them talk. Enjoy a beloved moment where he was cool enough to hang out with his big sister and her awesome friend. 

So embarrassing now, all those years. All the closeness they shared. Maybe it was all one-sided, and Chris was only being nice because he knew Felix needed him. 

That wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t. Chris acted like Felix invented joy, and he wasn’t a person with a lot of pretense. But that was worse, if Felix loved him like this and Chris only loved him like that. 

Finally, he felt stupid enough to text Chris. 

_please stay in sydney._

Chris was typing and deleting for a minute. Finally, he sent, _i enrolled with uq last night._

 _can u take it back?_ Felix typed, but didn’t send. 

Chris sent, _maybe it’ll be good to get some space._

  
  


Today’s a hard day. Felix made it out of bed and to school, just barely. He fell asleep in a study room instead of eating lunch. He took some notes in his classes, but he doesn’t remember anything. He’s okay, though. With a good night’s sleep, he’ll be ready to try again tomorrow. 

Jisung is texting him. He’s saying, _where u at? Are we studying today??_

Felix responds, _im feeling crappy. think im just gonna go home._

 _Oh no ): ): ):_ , Jisung sends. _Can u make it? You can come back to my house???? I’ll cook you healing foods._

Jisung lives in a house really close to campus with a couple other international students. Felix lives with his parents halfway across the city. Also, Jisung really is a comfort, and some healing foods would not go unappreciated right now, after skipping lunch. He responds, _actually that might be good. I’m in the library._

Felix takes a final minute to mope with his head on the table, and then a moment to stretch like a cat, and then a moment to pack his stuff. Then just another moment to gather the strength to stand up.

When he gets downstairs to the library entrance, Jisung is already waiting for him. He’s wearing a beanie, tight pants and a puffy jacket that makes him look tiny and sweet. He sees Felix and smiles, waves, pushes up from where he’s leaning on a low wall. He yanks out his earbuds and shoves the whole tangle in his bag as he walks over. 

“Hi,” he says, holding his arms out for a hug. “Bad day?” 

Jisung is the same size as Felix, and he’s wiggly by nature, much more likely to jokingly slap someone than to hug on purpose, but he really tries for Felix. He makes himself big to wrap Felix up and he holds firmly and he takes deep breaths. His hands still wiggle a little, up and down Felix’s back, kind. 

It’s so nice to have a warm person to hold. Felix shoves his arms into Jisung’s jacket and holds him under it, warm as a nap. He hooks his chin over Jisung’s shoulder. It helps. He loves Jisung. 

Jisung doesn’t let him go until Felix is ready, and even then, he finds Felix’s hand behind him and laces his fingers with it, squeezing like a heartbeat as they start walking off campus and back to Jisung’s place. 

“So, what happened?” Jisung asks, because for him it’s that simple. 

“Nothing,” Felix says, forcing himself to perk up at least a little. “Just kind of… not feeling it today.” 

“That’s too bad. I hope you feel better soon,” Jisung chirps. “I’m gonna make you some soup.” 

“Are you?” Felix asks as Jisung swings their hands between them. Felix doesn’t really know Jisung to cook. He eats a lot of snacks and a lot of fast food and a lot of pizza. 

But Jisung nods emphatically. “Yeah, I used to help my mom cook all the time. Do you know about samgyetang?” 

“Not really,” Felix says. “Soup?” 

“Yeah, with chicken and stuff. I’ll make some. It’s really good for you.” 

“Cool,” Felix says, and he feels very loved. 

♡

Jisung says he has the ingredients at home, so they go straight there. None of his roommates are using the kitchen, so Jisung starts some water boiling, and that’s as far as he gets before Felix realizes that Jisung doesn’t know what he’s doing. 

It’s cute, if a little nerve-wracking. He doesn’t do anything dangerous, he just throws a bunch of frozen chicken breast and rice into the water and acts like that’s anything. He adds ginger and salt, and then he’s about to chop up an onion, but the onion he has is shriveled. He says, “I’ve had it for a while,” and makes perplexed eye contact with it for a second before tossing it into the trash. Then he looks at Felix and says, “I guess I don’t have everything.” 

The water is barely hot, so Felix says, “We can go to Woolworths?” It’s barely two blocks away, it would be easy to run in for a couple things. Felix can help Jisung make soup. It might not be samgyetang, but it would be better than unflavored boiled chicken. 

“No, no,” Jisung says. “I don’t like it there. They have too much stuff. I think this is okay. I mean, usually it’s a whole chicken and there’s other vegetables, but I think this will still be healing.” 

He seems confident enough, but mostly Felix is tired and he doesn’t want to go to Woolworths either, so he lets Jisung take the lead, looking perplexed at his own hand as he squeezes from a honey container, then adds a bunch of gochujang, which he promises makes everything taste better.

Felix watches him flit around deep in thought as he chatters about his mom’s cooking and how everyone eats hot soup on hot days in Korea, how it’s hot right now there but getting cold here, and isn’t that weird? And how he thinks the soup will come out good, really, it’ll start smelling good when it’s been boiling. Felix thinks Jisung is cute and kind and trying hard, and he’s not really hungry anyway, so he’s content to be here. He likes being fussed over by his boyfriend, even if his boyfriend doesn’t know how to go to the grocery store. 

The soup doesn’t ever start smelling like anything, and in the end it doesn’t taste like anything except gochujang, but that isn’t exactly bad. Felix has some, and assures Jisung, “It’s really good.” 

By now, Jisung doesn’t believe him. He scrunches up his face and says, “Is it?” 

“Yeah, yum,” Felix says, but he can’t make himself sound as convincing as he wants to, and it makes Jisung laugh at him, then Felix giggles too. “It’s not bad,” he insists. “It’s just a little, um, weak.” 

Jisung has his bowl made, so he tries a sip. He barely swallows it; he looks absolutely disgusted, huge open-mouthed frown with his shoulders hunched up, and he says, “Oh, it’s terrible.” He laughs loudly, eyes glittering. It is funny, and Felix laughs too. 

Jisung tries some more and chokes it down more bravely this time, but after he’s swallowed, he says, “Wow. This isn’t healing at all.” 

Felix bites back a laugh that’s agreement in itself. 

“This is an evil food,” Jisung decides with a mock seriousness that breaks into an enormous grin as soon as Felix starts giggling. 

“No, no,” Felix insists, “It’s healing me, it’s healing me, look,” and he tries some more but gets a big glob of undissolved gochujang, which makes him choke while he’s laughing, and it’s ridiculous. 

Finally, Jisung sighs with silly remorse. “Wanna just get some ice cream and watch Youtube documentaries? Throw this broth in the trash?” 

“That sounds perfect,” Felix says earnestly. Cozying up with Jisung sounds amazing, and despite it all, he is feeling pretty healed already. 

♡ 

Chris shows up at Felix’s house literally on his first night back in Sydney. Felix knew he was getting in tonight, but they’ve so far avoided talking about it in any substantial way. Felix has no idea what to expect — they might fight the whole time, Felix might be angrier than ever as soon as he sees Chris’ betraying face, or maybe he’ll need to cry six months of tears, or maybe they’ll pretend nothing happened for the sake of a couple peaceful days together, which could be the worst. No matter what, Felix is dreading it. 

He’s also extremely, incredibly excited. That’s how it always is with Chris. He’s the best comfort, even when he’s the one Felix is angry with. He’s the one that helps. Even though Felix’s feelings about Chris are complicated and uncomfortable and thinking about it too much makes him feel very embarrassed, he wants a hug. He wants to hug Chris. He wants to feel his solid body and his strong arms and hear his little mumbly comforts. Nothing else is ever the same. 

So, it’s a pleasant surprise when he realizes that Chris is coming over. He knows he’s pulling in before he hears the car, then the knock on the door downstairs a moment later and the clamor Chris makes just by being alive. Just by being physically present in space, here, at Felix’s house after six months. Felix’s stomach is spinning. 

Felix is upstairs on his computer. He hears his mom get the door. She says, “Oh, Christopher, I didn’t know you were in town. Come in.” 

“Hi, Mrs. Lee!” Comes Chris’ voice, clear and ringing, bouncing off the walls. “Felix home?” 

“He’s in his room,” she says. “I’m sure he’ll be excited to see you.” 

Felix bites back a smile so big it stretches his face in a way he isn’t used to anymore. He pushes down the feeling filling him up like a helium balloon. He rearranges his headphones so it looks like he’s listening to something, unsuspecting. 

Chris barrels up the stairs. He comes to Felix’s doorway and Felix waits as long as he can before looking up at him. It isn’t very long at all. 

Chris stands there for a second. He’s smiling, but biting it down, too. His eyes are wide and waiting. His hair’s damp, like he just got home, showered and came straight here. He’s wearing a tank top and gym shorts, even though it’s chilly out. 

But that’s just for a second, until Felix can’t hold it anymore, and in a voice so wistful he can hardly stand it, he says, “Hi, Chris.” 

Then they’re both grinning and laughing, and Chris is jumping into Felix’s bed and hugging him and shouting, “Felix!” 

“One second, one second,” Felix giggles. His headphones are all tangled now, yanking on his ears. 

Chris lets up immediately, looks concerned, but only gives Felix the chance to put his laptop on the nightstand before he’s back in, hugging Felix so hard that he can’t breathe, warm like the sun, life-giving, and saying, “Ah, I missed you.” 

“You too, hi,” Felix says as Chris lets up, flops off and back onto the bed next to Felix. 

The place where their arms are touching is warm, and Felix wants another hug, but now they’re catching up instead. 

Felix digs around for the animosity. He tries to find a foothold in the part of him that has been furious with Chris for six months, the one who has been trying to learn to hate him. He tries to remind himself that the sunbeam where their bodies brush is a trick of the light. But honestly, it’s a lot of effort to care about that right now. 

“So yeah, I didn’t know if I’d be able to get the spare tire on, but I did surprisingly well, I think. And the place in Coffs Harbour just happened to be really slow right when I got there, so I only lost like, an hour?” 

“When was the last time you got new tires?” Felix asks. 

“Never, maybe?” Chris laughs with embarrassment. “I don’t know.” 

Felix gives him a look. 

“I know, I know,” Chris laughs, “But this car was supposed to die like six years ago, so I don’t, like, fix it anymore.” 

“We’re gonna get you new tires before you go back,” Felix says. “I’m not allowing you to make that drive with your six-year-old tires.” Oh, and there’s the animosity, or at least the smell of it. Felix is just gonna help him get ready to go away again safely, of course. 

But after that, Felix all but forgets about hurting for the rest of the evening. He doesn’t look at his phone, he doesn’t think about anything, his heart isn’t sore, he isn’t even tired. He and Chris are just lying on their backs on Felix’s bed, barely touching arms, and talking like the friends they’ve always been. At some point, Felix’s chest starts to feel strange, and he realizes that it’s just been a while since he really laughed. 

Chris looks great, as usual. A bit pale going into the winter, and he looks tired from the drive, but he’s such a lovely person. He looks lean and strong. His hair’s shorter. But the same Chris that he’s always been, forever. The same big sparkly eyes and barely held laugh. 

He even smells the same. It’s his body soap, some manly aqua smell. Felix has lived in the same bedroom his whole life, but that smell is really what it’s like to be at home. 

Chris heads out when it starts getting late, and Felix finally gets his good hug. Not the one where he’s crushed into the bed like a big dog is jumping all over him, but the one where he can take his time and drink it all up. It’s really like something being drained back into him, like he’s a little plant and this is the water at his roots, spreading up through him and making him green and strong again. Warm, warm, warm, and Chris lets him have it. He rubs Felix’s back and hugs him back, hooks his chin over Felix’s shoulder. 

For a minute, he thinks he’s about to hear Chris say he’s sorry; he thinks he feels regret, hollowness, tempering the glittery joy of it all. But no one says anything, and no one cries, and not one second after Felix feels strong enough, he lets Chris go. 

“I’ll text you tomorrow,” Chris says. “I’m free.” 

“Okay,” Felix says. “I’ll see you.”

Then, with difficulty, Chris goes home. 

When he’s gone, Felix decides that everything is still there. Everything good and everything bad and everything confusing and embarrassing. All the unfair things that Felix needs from Chris are still unfair, all the betrayal he still feels. But right now, if Chris is willing to let him have it, then Felix will let himself have it, too. 

♡

They see a lot of each other. Chris comes to the diner before Felix gets off work, hangs his floppy body over the counter and pretends to order a bunch of crazy stuff, then laughs at himself and is like, “Just kidding!” even though everyone knows he’s kidding, everyone knows he’s here for Felix.

He yells into the back when Felix is clocking out, “I texted your dad that I’m picking you up. So don’t worry.” 

“I’m nineteen,” Felix calls back. “I don’t have to tell my dad where I am.” 

But Chris is that kind of person, when it comes to Felix, and he probably will be for as long as they know each other. Felix is gonna be 25 and Chris is gonna be texting his dad. 

Felix changes into a shirt that doesn’t smell like fryer oil and they get into Chris’ fucked up, ancient corolla. They find some place to watch the sunset and eat whatever leftovers Felix was able to snag. They talk about the things they always talk about, everything, nothing, their thoughts on the world. Felix doesn’t talk about some things, but that’s how it’s been for a while. That’s how it’s been since Felix realized that Chris was the person he could not live without in this world. 

On days off, they meet up. Felix goes to the grocery store with Chris and helps him pick stuff out to cook. Chris goes to Felix’s house and lies down on his floor for two hours. Chris pretends to help Felix bake a cake. They just waste time. It’s not that important to be doing anything. 

They walk around outside when it’s nice, they see a movie on a rainy day. They cook, sometimes at Felix’s place, sometimes at Chris’, which is a bit cozier than Felix’s and just as familiar as his own home. It’s not about where they are. Wherever Chris is, that’s where Felix wants to be. Even the last six months, when Felix, childishly, refused to let go. All Chris has to do is exist, and Felix can too. 

♡

Felix should probably feel guilty about spending so much time with him. But if he’s being truly honest, he doesn’t. 

For one, Jisung knows they’re best friends, so it’s not weird for them to drink up as much of each other as they can during the time Chris is in town. The three of them even hang out together a couple times, and it isn’t weird. Felix sits where he can touch Jisung, and Chris sits far enough away that there’s no danger of brushing hands. And they all get along; they all laugh. Jisung and Chris hit it off because they’re both enthusiastic and hilarious. 

Of course it isn’t weird; Felix is the only one worried about that. That’s the reason he is supposed to feel guilty. 

But no, he doesn’t. He’s too wrapped up in it. Swept up by the tide-pull of it. 

And if he’s being truly honest, even if Jisung was jealous, even if it was weird, Felix would probably still be doing it. So there it is. 

Being in the same space as Chris is like the sun returning after months of darkness. He’s been stumbling along, doing everything by weak light growing weaker, ever since Chris left. And now that Chris is here, he’s warm again. Everything is easier. Just sitting still is easier, just living in his own mind. It’s winter outside, but summer sets in wherever Felix follows Chris. 

He feels great. It’s so heady, so big that he isn’t even thinking in terms of guilty or not guilty, healthy or not healthy, good or bad. He’s just spending these days with Chris that linger like golden drops of honey, watching sunsets and laughing and not talking about anything that might hurt it. 

There are moments of lucidity. One night, Chris stays late at Felix’s house, and when he goes home, Felix can’t sleep. He’s up for hours, suddenly stricken with all the worry he’s been avoiding through all those days. 

This wonderful thing is the reason he’s sick, too. 

When Chris leaves again, after reminding Felix of what it feels like to be happy, Felix is going to go back to living in the dark. 

He’s gonna go back to relying on his antidepressants and tylenols to keep going. He’s gonna go back to having days when he just doesn’t feel alright for a single moment. Trying not to worry Jisung, or his parents, not that they worry about him much. Jisung is gonna go back to rubbing Felix’s back on the days when he needs to cry, and Felix is going to go back to pushing away the thought that he might be a really, really bad person. To let Jisung comfort him through his pain, without knowing the reason for it. 

But as long as his head is in the right place, it’s okay. As long as he’s aware that his bond is fake, that Chris doesn’t share it, that the way to heal is to move forward. He would never do anything to hurt Jisung. Just because they aren’t soulmates? Well, Felix and Chris aren’t soulmates either, despite what Felix’s body thinks. 

Other than these rare doubts, Felix mostly just lives in it. He just does this. He keeps doing this. The days feel long and meaningful and the moments feel like memories even as they’re happening, so much that they almost overwhelm him to experience, solar flare and cold sand and laughing until his ribs hurt. Just taking a walk in the park, just driving to the store and singing along to the radio. Just lying on the floor of Chris’ room, looking at the bumps in the ceiling and talking until Chris’ little brother comes to bother them.

♡

Felix wasn’t joking about forcing Chris to get new tires. As soon as he realizes Chris isn’t planning on actually doing it, he makes the appointment himself. It’s silly, he’s on the phone like, “It’s a corolla. It’s red. The year is, I don’t know actually. 1999? Try that.” 

“If we order the wrong tires,” the guy on the phone says. 

“I’m sorry,” Felix laughs. “I’ll just check with the um. The owner.” 

“Right,” the guy says, not getting that it’s funny, but Felix is thinking about how much Chris is gonna laugh at him later. 

“I’ll call back. I’ll call back, thank you.” 

“No problem,” the guy says, fed up, as he hangs up. 

Chris ends up just making the appointment himself, and Felix makes a big show about being proud of him, and then they go together. “Moral support,” Felix insists, but it’s not like he needs an excuse to hang around with Chris for an afternoon. 

They walk around for a bit, but it’s rainy and there’s nothing to do around here, so they end up just wasting time in the waiting room at the tire shop, sitting around and chatting and scrolling on their phones, flipping through magazines and laughing and telling stories with their thighs barely touching. 

They’re catching up about school. Even uneventful stories are worthwhile; Felix just likes the sound of Chris’ voice. Just the texture of it: hesitant, like he’s worried about his own strength. High then low. Asking, not telling, unless he’s really upset. But he’s just lilting along right now about one of his advanced production courses. 

“Which was the class that gave you all the homework?” Felix asks, thinking about all Chris’ late late nights, all his busy mornings. All the times he was too busy to talk. “These all sound pretty fun.” 

“Ah, that was… Composition.” 

“You have to think about it?” 

“Well, it was that and Studio Techniques, both.” 

Something about the way Chris is talking is a little suspicious, but Felix can’t pin down why, other than the texture of his voice getting a bit defensive. 

“They were both hard. Like, turning in songs every week, and everything. Pulling all nighters all the time.” 

Felix has seen the effect of that. Chris does seem a bit tired after a semester away. He’s still as handsome as ever, of course, he’s just got this new serious look to him when he’s thinking hard, this pale paperiness that makes him seem delicate where he has always struck Felix as very golden and strong and radiant. It scares Felix, all at once, and he’s overwhelmed with the urge to ask, “Do you like it there?” 

Chris looks at Felix for a second too long before he says, “Yes I do.”

“Why do you sound like you’re lying?” Felix asks, almost a whisper. 

“I’m not lying,” Chris says, but not like he’s fighting. 

“It seems like they’re asking a lot,” Felix says quietly. He’s just looking out for Chris. “You seem overwhelmed, sometimes, when I talk to you. I’m in school full-time too, and I work, and I still have free time.” 

“Well, I’m not just doing homework 24/7,” Chris says a bit placatingly. “I have friends too, like, I have reasons that I’m not always available.” 

He has reasons for ignoring Felix, he’s saying. He’s talking quietly in the waiting room of this place, even though it’s just them here. 

“You don’t talk about your friends,” Felix says. He sounds stupid, but the words are just coming out. He just wants to understand. 

Chris sighs like he’s getting tired of humoring Felix. It hurts his feelings very badly very quickly, so before Chris can talk, Felix says, “Forget it. Forget about it.” 

“I don’t, I didn’t mean like. I’m not too busy for you.” Chris is trying, but it doesn’t help. 

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Felix is feeling very close to tears, feeling like Chris is too far away already. Like he’s already driving away to leave again. “I don’t need to know everything you do. I’m being…” he doesn’t know. “I’m being stupid.” 

Chris seems to get it, and Felix doesn’t really understand why, because he hasn’t really said anything. But he really seems to feel it too when he says, “I’m sorry. I’m really trying.” 

“It’s fine, I’m sorry,” Felix says. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He wants to go back to the golden hour of this, the last handful of days before Chris leaves again. Felix doesn’t have to live in that yet, and he doesn’t want to. “Sorry,” he says again. “Can you tell me more about Brisbane?” 

♡

There’s a night when there’s a big party at the house of somebody Felix doesn’t know super well. But Jisung is best friends with everyone, so he’s invited to everything. Jisung invites Chris, too, before Felix even asks, which saves a bit of awkwardness. 

“He’s leaving in a couple days, right?” Jisung asks. “He should definitely celebrate.” He’s so matter-of-fact about it. 

So they all meet up at Felix’s house, where Felix is still finishing up his makeup and sort of hiding in the bathroom for a reason he can’t exactly identify, and then they load up in Chris’ car and go to the party. 

It’s typical; Felix knows a bunch of people, but not everyone, and Jisung is dragging him around making him meet everybody. “This is my boyfriend Felix, and his friend Chris,” he tells everyone, so charming and popular. 

Felix waves and smiles, and leans against Jisung on purpose.

It’s funny because, in the past, Felix followed Chris to all his parties and met everyone through him. But this is a bunch of people from Felix and Jisung’s school that Chris doesn’t know, and it’s kind of strange to see him navigate it. He’s not as confident as Felix is used to. There’s some kind of anxiety that shimmers off him in waves; Felix feels like he can almost taste it. But he still holds his own, and everybody loves him, of course, because he is wonderful. 

Felix gets way more drunk than he was expecting off the two beers he anxiously chugged. Side effect of the meds, he can never exactly tell what’s going to happen. He wasn’t thinking about that, but he finds the room spinning, sounds around him hollowing out into a low, tinny hum, thoughts growing especially sticky. 

He’s a bit queasy all of a sudden, so he sits down somewhere to get himself sorted out. He doesn’t know where Jisung and Chris have gone, and he’s having trouble seeing straight enough to make out anybody in the crowd. Looking makes him dizzy, so he closes his eyes. There are people next to him, maybe yelling, but he doesn’t hear what they’re saying. 

He takes some breaths, counts up to fifteen or something, and he feels different at the end. Well, what he feels is a bit cold. His fingers and toes. He thinks he needs something. Water would be a good start. Chris would be good, too. 

Yeah. Chris can find where the water is, and get whatever else Felix needs that he can’t think of right now. And he can make sure Felix is okay, even if he ends up needing to throw up or something. Which it’s feeling like he might, now that the thought’s in his head. 

He takes a deep breath and then he gets up to find Chris. 

Luckily, it doesn’t take very long. He goes through some doorway and Chris sees him from across the room. He comes right over, looking like he can tell what’s happening, even though Felix is pretty sure he’s holding it together, from the outside. He’s really good at looking like there’s nothing wrong. 

“Hey, Little One,” Chris says quietly. “You okay?” 

“I got too drunk,” Felix admits. 

“Didn’t you have like two beers?” Chris asks. He looks a bit panicked, “Do you think somebody might have put something in your drink?” 

“No, no, definitely not,” Felix says. He and Chris are standing really close in the corner of this crowded room, and Felix, ah, he’s pulled into Chris like a magnet. He rests his forehead right in the exact center of his chest. 

Yes, that was the right thing to do. Chris is so warm, and he smells like he’s always smelled. Boy soap. Felix breathes him in for a second, before he remembers he was saying something. “It’s the antidepressants. They fuck with it. I forgot.” 

“Oh,” Chris says softly. “I didn’t know you were…”

“Because I don’t want you to know,” Felix says. 

Chris makes a sweet little concerned sound. He’s really nice. He says, “Okay, yeah. Well, I’ve heard that can happen.” He’s got a hand on the back of Felix’s head now, holding him to himself, and it’s so warm, wow. Chris’ heartbeat on Felix’s face, and his fingers, each outlined, one, two, three, four, against his skull. Oh, nothing has ever helped so much. 

Felix sighs. 

Chris says, “Um. What do you need right now?” 

“Nothing,” Felix says, muffled into Chris’ shirt. “This.” 

It’s like he’s being filled with sunlight. It’s like his heart is waking up. It’s like he’s melting, softly, into Chris’ chest, like he’s forming against him. Yeah, he’s fine now. 

Somehow, they’re holding hands. Somehow, they’re swaying a little. 

Somehow, Felix has forgotten that there is anything to be worried about, and all he can remember is that he loves Chris. Somehow, he has even forgotten, almost, that Chris doesn’t love him too. 

Later, after he’s had some water and he’s feeling a lot clearer, Jisung finds him. 

“So,” he says. He looks pissed off. “What’s up?” 

“Hi. With what?” Felix asks. It takes a second to hit. 

“I’m not trying to be jealous, or whatever.” 

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. 

“I know you’re super touch starved all the time,” Jisung goes on. Felix was wrong, Jisung is not exactly pissed off, just exasperated, confused. His feelings are hurt, and Felix feels bad all at once. “And I know he’s your best friend, but come on. You were like, slow dancing.” 

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Felix says honestly. “I was way too drunk for a second. I just needed…” Well, he doesn’t know. He needed Chris. Ah, he really shouldn’t have done that. “Sorry.” 

“Yeah, well it’s okay. It was just weird and people could see you.” 

“I’m sorry, Jisung.” Foot in his mouth, he says, “I choose you.” 

“Okay, fine,” Jisung says, waving it off. “Do you want to sleep over?” 

Felix nods. Jisung holds out a hand and Felix takes it. Warm, too, just not the whole sun. Felix says, “I just need to—” 

“What, talk to Chris?” Jisung says, a challenge. 

Felix was supposed to go home with Chris, but now he shouldn’t. He should still let him know, but he guesses he’ll just text him. Chris’ll understand. He says, “No, nevermind. I’m good. We can go.” 

So they do. They leave together and get in the uber and go back to Jisung’s place. 

When they get back, Felix is more tired than he should be. He wants to hang out with Jisung, maybe fool around to prove that he cares, but he really just wants to cuddle. So he wipes off his makeup in the bathroom and takes off his tight pants and crawls into Jisung’s bed. He needs the warmth of the covers and Jisung wrapped around him. 

Jisung is a great cuddler, a tight hugger, a person with a big, good heart, and tonight he grips Felix like he wants to keep him there. Felix has a passing thought that he may have really hurt Jisung, but it’s slow and far-apart and hard to grasp, and then he falls asleep warm, still warm. 

  
  


The next morning, he has a bunch of texts from Chris. 

_Did u leave?_

_Did u and jisung go without me?_

_Felixxxxxxxxx_

_Ok uh I’m leaving, if u 2 are somewhere… I guess .. Call me if you need a ride_

Then, from the morning:

 _Let me know you’re alive_

_Can we talk please_

Felix responds: 

_Sorry chris_

_Yeah_

_I’ll come over later_

  
  
  


Felix puts his pants from last night back on with a big t-shirt of Jisung’s. His hair is messed up and there are remnants of last night’s makeup around his eyes, but sometimes you just have to to accept that you look hungover. Jisung looks disheveled too, but he wears it so well. He’s messy in an effortless way, lazy and handsome. 

Felix doesn’t look at his phone again, and he doesn’t rush through his morning with Jisung. They decide to walk for some breakfast and take their time leaving. On their way out the door, Jisung asks, “Are you staying around all day, or do you need to head out?” 

“I actually have plans later,” Felix says, though he feels bad saying it. 

“Oh cool,” Jisung says. He’s locking the front door behind them. “What time?” 

“No time in particular. In the afternoon sometime.” 

Jisung looks at Felix a little too seriously. “With Chris?” 

“Yeah,” Felix admits, making himself not look away. 

Jisung says, “That’s cool,” but it sounds like he’s a bit wounded. 

“Look,” Felix says, “It’s not like—” 

Jisung looks away first. “I didn’t say it was.” 

“I know. But it isn’t.” 

“I know,” Jisung says. 

“I love you,” Felix says, and he means it, and he makes himself sound like he means it. 

“Love you too,” Jisung says, and though he still sounds hurt, he sounds like he means it too. 

Felix is carrying dread around about Chris and last night. Though it was just a moment, not egregious, Felix was wrong to do it. What he allowed himself to feel was wrong. Living, even for a drunk moment, in a goldenlit world where he and Chris could have been something, even in his own mind, is not fair. It’s not within the scope of allowed behaviors. 

It’s not like Felix doesn’t already know that he gets attention from Chris that Chris doesn’t give other people. His sister Rachel used to act fake-jealous about it, about how Felix got text replies in seconds when everybody in their year got left on read all the time. How he was always too busy with music for anybody except Felix. It made Felix feel a bit special, because Chris really is beloved, his time wanted, and for good reason. Nobody cares like Chris cares, nobody’s as kind, and Felix has always been the person who received it the most directly. No wonder he accidentally formed a soulmate bond with him — anybody would feel very special if they got to be a cat in the sunbeam of Chris’ love all the time. 

While Chris is a very attentive person, always up-to-date on the many affairs of all his many friends, always helping someone with something, never expecting anything in return, he has always directed it toward Felix in a way that has made him feel secure in their love for one another. 

And yet, knowing as well as Felix does what it feels like to be loved by Chris, he has been noticing a new kind of attention. It’s always quick. It’s Chris looking at Felix from across a room, lips slightly parted, stuck on him. 

If anything makes Felix remember his anger, it’s that. 

Felix doesn’t know why Chris keeps letting this happen. Why can’t he take a little pity on Felix? Why can’t he stay back, just a little bit? It’s not as hard for him. 

It’s just terrible. Felix wants to be with Jisung. He wants to be going for breakfast with him and making him laugh and he wants that to be all he’s doing. Instead of fighting something off, all the time. He doesn’t want to be making excuses to his boyfriend about why he was holding someone else’s hand. It isn’t fair. 

Chris has had his chances; he’s wasted them. This works, and they can be friends even though Felix and Jisung are together, because there is no chance. Because this will never happen, because Felix works hard not to let himself believe in the simple hope of it. Felix is not a bad person for hurting over Chris, but he is a bad person if he thinks that Chris is an option. As soon as he is choosing, weighing, making Jisung into someone who has to earn his place against Chris, that’s when Felix becomes a bad person. 

The most unfair part of all is how short it falls. What if Chris did want Felix? What if he does?

If Chris is hungry like he sometimes looks, what does that mean? That he wants to take even more from Felix? More than his happiness? His chance at a simple love with someone else? His dignity, sometimes? His energy? 

The worst part is, even if Chris loved Felix, even then, it wouldn’t mean enough. 

Chris can love Felix all he wants, but it will never be the same. That’s the curse that Felix has fallen under. 

His body, his mind and his heart, have created a bond with Chris that is less like a crush and more like a mother and a child, more like twins who can feel each others’ pain across space and time, even when separated at birth; people matched so perfectly that their blood is the same, so perfectly attuned that living without the other is unbearable to imagine. Felix loves Chris like they are the same person. Being away from him is like being away from himself. And Chris doesn’t share that, so there is nothing he could ever do that would leave Felix feeling anything but lonely. 

♡ 

When Felix gets to Chris’ house in the early afternoon, he is angry. Chris looks like he knows. He seems hurt, nervous. He says, “Hey,” and avoids eye contact. 

Felix sits in the desk chair across from where Chris sits in the bed. Funny, it’s like the time Chris said he was moving. They were in Felix’s room, and Chris was in the chair, and Felix was on the bed. That was the beginning of the end, and now, Felix thinks this will be the end of the end.

“Hey,” Felix says back. 

“So,” Chris says, glancing up and then back down. 

“So.” 

“So last night sucked.” 

Felix nods, but Chris is looking down. 

“You leaving without saying anything, leaving me in a house with all your friends I don’t know.” 

Felix clears his throat. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. That wasn’t cool of me.”

“Okay,” Chris says. But he looks at Felix like he knows there’s more. It’s heartbreaking, his big sparkly eyes waiting to hear the thing that hurts. 

“We um, crossed a line last night,” Felix says. “I guess I did. But we can’t do… we can’t do that anymore. It’s too much for me.” 

There might be tears in Chris’ eyes. “Yeah. Okay. I know that. I’m sorry.” 

Felix takes a deep breath. “I’m actually, I actually…” It’s really hard to say, not because he doesn’t have the words, but because they hurt to push out. Because if Chris is looking crushed, imagine how Felix feels? If Chris, with his big, not-enough love for Felix, is crying already? Imagine how Felix is going to suffer? “It’s too much,” he says again. “I need to choose. I’m hurting both of you, and I’m hurt too. I need to just choose.” 

“Okay,” Chris says, like that’s all he can say. 

“It has to be Jisung. I need to choose the boyfriend I have over the boyfriend I _don’t even have_ ,” Felix shoves out, and there it is, crying. Weeping. But he means it. “That’s the only way I’ll ever feel better.” 

It’s too much to admit, but whatever. If Chris doesn’t know by now, he’s stupid. And Chris isn’t stupid. 

“You don’t get to take this much of me,” Felix sobs out. “It isn’t fair.” 

Chris looks up and makes an ugly noise, tears running down his cheeks, his mouth tight. Felix loves him so much. He wants to curl up in his lap and be held by him, for so long, for years under his arms, to make up for all the soreness he endures by being away from him. But it doesn’t work like that.

The only way you heal from a soulmate bond is by leaving it completely. Felix can’t trick it. He has to go. 

“I understand,” Chris finally says. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did this to you. I…” he can’t get it out, but Felix knows what he wants to say. “I care about you so much.” 

“I’m sorry,” Felix sobs. 

They don’t reach out. They sit there, feet apart from each other, for a while. Felix cries into his hands. 

He realizes he isn’t soon to run out of tears, but eventually they slow down enough for him to go home. No ceremony, he just waves goodbye in the doorway, and the knowledge is heavy in his chest that it is probably the last time. 

Yet, what can you do? 

What can you do in the face of something so momentous but just go? 

It’s not actually as hard as he thinks it will be, once he decides to do it.

♡ ♡ ♡ 

Felix and Jisung are curled up in Jisung’s bed, watching anime on Jisung’s laptop. It’s warm and cozy under the covers, but the air in the room is chilly, and Felix is clinging to Jisung. 

It’s a dreary day, and Felix is as tired these days as he’s ever been. He could just sleep forever. He could just curl up warm in this bed with this sweet person and listen to the sound of the rain slap on the roof and the show they’re half-watching and never get up again. It might be nice. 

But it’s about time. He wants to stay here with his arms thrown around Jisung's waist, narrow and warm and familiar, but he knows Jisung couldn't. He's starting to get antsy after an hour of this, shifting positions and playing with Felix's hair like it's getting hard to sit still. 

Felix just needs another minute, then he'll get up first, so Jisung doesn't have to feel like he's dragging Felix around. 

It's hard today. It's really hard. It gets harder. It's hard enough that Felix feels guilty, just for being here, just for making Jisung deal with him. He says, "Sorry." 

Jisung turns his head to look at Felix with confusion. "Why? Your toes aren't that cold. You’re good." He grins to prove it. 

"Sorry for being slow.” 

“Slow?” 

Felix’s mind is sticky. He says, “Kinda sleepy, lately.” 

Jisung doesn’t seem to have any complicated emotions when he says, “Oh, that’s okay.” He rubs Felix’s back a little. “You’re just a sleepy guy.” 

“Am I?” 

“Yeah, but I like it. I like you.” 

Felix makes a little sound. He was trying to apologize for today, for right now, not for his whole personality. But maybe the slowness is not something laid on top of a person who still has excitement in him. Maybe he _is_ just like this.

“I’ll get better,” he says weakly. He knows it affects Jisung, even if Felix uses all his energy sometimes to keep it off him. 

“You’re not bad,” Jisung says effortlessly. “It’s cool, cause we’re different. I’m loud and you’re quiet. It’s like. Opposites. Like the sun and moon.” 

He means to be sweet, but it’s only that Jisung has never seen Felix when he’s whole before. Which is really sad. 

“Thank you,” Felix says quietly. And then he sits up first. 

  
  


Felix goes to school and he goes to work. He spends time with Jisung and his friends; he stays caught up on his homework. He doesn’t miss anything that he’s promised to attend, no matter how hard it can be. He makes sure to be aware of the time that passes, not to let it get ahead of him and leave him behind. 

Being present in your life is a kind of sanity. It’s a kind of wholeness. Felix makes sure to participate. If that’s all he can do, it’s better than sitting still and letting the empty place in his heart open up until he can fit his whole body inside it. 

The fist in his stomach doesn’t unclench, and, after months, Felix still struggles through the motions. Waking up is hard, sleeping is hard. Getting up, sitting still, thinking, resting. At least nothing is much harder than anything else. 

Of course, not calling Chris is the hardest. There’s a gravitational pull towards him, always tugging. It would be so easy just to hear his voice. 

But it’s something Felix won’t do. He knows now. He knows. 

In a year, maybe two, he’ll be fully himself again. 

He’ll have this place in his heart that’s empty. It’ll never be filled again. But eventually, it won’t take from him anymore. 

Felix is happy he chose Jisung. Of course he is, he always knew he would be. 

He, of course, told Jisung about ending things with Chris. It was the day after, and the reality of it hadn’t fully hit Felix yet, though he could feel the collision approaching with held breath, and he said, “You don’t have to worry about him anymore.” 

Jisung said, “I wasn’t really worried, but—” 

“I think you were right to be offended,” Felix insisted, gritted teeth. “And I think it was a long time coming, for me and him, anyway. So um, yeah. We can move on from that.” 

And Jisung, simple and straightforward person that he is, smiled like he understood that Felix was trying to love him, and said, “That sounds good.” 

Jisung is easy with love and easy to love, and he doesn’t love Felix any less for anything; not for being droopy, sleepy, burdened with something he doesn’t name. All Felix can do is give Jisung his very best, and trust that one day this will be behind them. The thing that pulls him through some days is thinking about how nice it will be to show Jisung what he’s like when he’s happy. 

They spend nights together, and they study together, and Jisung comes over for dinner and Felix’s parents are really sweet to him, even if they’re a little weird about him in private. Felix and Jisung swing their hands between them when they walk places. They win each other prizes in a claw machine at a bowling alley; they kiss on the front step of Felix’s house. It’s so lovely sometimes. 

In September, they celebrate their side-by-side birthdays together with a little party. It’s all normal and pretty and numb, streamers and music and little gifts and mostly Jisung’s friends. They’re all talking and Felix is mostly listening, smiling along, letting himself feel comfortable. 

Then, suddenly, something in his heart settles, and Felix is happy. The light hits right for a moment, and Jisung is smiling at Felix with his big, sweet, heart-full smile, and it finally touches Felix too. Safe, warm, seen. It passes too quickly, but he holds the feeling close. 

After that, Felix starts having moments above the fog where he can see into his future and he can see that he was smart. This version of his life is good; there is peace to be found here. Jisung is the person he wants, fair and square, and not the lopsided thing with Chris that would always have made him feel empty. This is what he has to go through, but it isn’t the end of his life. 

He doesn’t ask after Chris anymore. It has to be like that, for the bond to break. Best not even to think about him too hard. 

Felix’s big sister asks about him, once. She asks how he is, says she hasn’t heard from him, she heard he’s struggling, and Felix just says, “I don’t talk to him anymore.” 

“Oh?” she says. “You don’t talk to him? Since when?” 

“Winter break,” Felix says. “We got in a fight. We’re not friends anymore.” 

She actually pulls up a chair, and looks at him like she doesn’t recognize him. “What did he do?” she whispers, like that’s the only reason they could have parted ways, like Chris must have had to do something really evil. 

If Felix started crying, she’d really think that, so he doesn’t. He just says, “I don’t want to talk about him.” 

It’s cold and it feels bad to say, but that’s the only way. Cruel and clean. No more ragged edges to this break, there are too many already. 

When he does think about Chris, it’s cold and hot. He’s angry; he can feel it now that they’re apart. He’s embarrassed that he let it get so bad, and he wishes Chris had stopped him. He wishes Chris could have used his bigger strength to keep Felix safe, like he said he’d always do. Even if that meant being the one to pull back. That would have been kind. 

Also, the amount Felix still wants to be beside him is embarrassing. It makes him feel tiny. He dreams about Chris calling to apologize, to say he’s coming home. He dreams about spending quiet time by his side. He dreams about being a blade of grass in his sunlight. 

It’s not mostly anger. It’s mostly sand and sea breeze, shelter against wind when it starts getting dark. It’s mostly Chris’ big knuckly hands, his big nose, his shiny eyes always asking questions. His boy soap that only smells good on his skin, his easy laugh and his difficult laugh and his arms holding Felix tight enough to keep him from floating away. Memories worn-in, revisited enough to be faded now, but even as the detail washes away, the colors remain. When he thinks of those times, it isn’t ever anger he remembers. 

It isn’t any easier yet. In some ways, it’s harder. But the quality of the pain is different: grief more than longing, and that is a worthwhile change. 

♡

Thank god Felix is too depressed to go with Jisung on his errands that afternoon. He’s supposed to be at that bookstore with him when it happens, picking up some reading for one of Jisung’s classes before their dinner plans in the evening. 

But Felix is at home instead, and then Jisung cancels their date with a quick, almost thoughtless text. It leaves Felix all dressed up with nowhere to put the energy he’s been saving up all day, nothing to do except sit on his bed with a heaviness in his heart that’s too big for the moment. He scrolls on his phone restlessly, no one to talk to and nothing he can think of to do, until eventually he gets back in his pajamas and goes to bed. 

The next day, Jisung calls him. He apologizes, not for the canceled date, but for the thing that Felix, somehow, should be more surprised by. Maybe even people who aren’t soulmates, if they really love one another, can know each other’s minds a little. 

But Jisung’s soulmate is named Hyunjin, and he works at the bookstore. 

Jisung explains it like he can’t help it, like Felix is some best friend that Jisung wants to share his successes with. And that’s Jisung. It’s what Felix cherishes about him, his love so impossible to avoid, turned into a weapon against him. 

He does spare Felix the details, but he can’t say that it happened without sounding like the happiest person in the world. “I understand it now. I get it,” he says. “It’s… crazy. But, I’m so sorry, Felix.” 

Felix can’t really say anything, but Jisung can fill space without trouble. He says, “I’m really sorry. I still want to be your friend. I still love you.” 

Felix still loves Jisung, too. But, of course, he loves him in a different way. A too-big way, now.

“I love you too,” Felix manages. “Um, I need… space.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jisung says. He’s trying so hard to understand that he’s breaking Felix’s heart, but it’s so hard, when he’s just met his perfect person. Felix _knows_ how hard that is. He knows how muddy it can make your mind. He knows that it can make you thoughtless towards people you really care about. “Yeah, I understand that. But we’re still friends.” 

“Bye, Jisung.” 

Felix hangs up. 

♡

It only takes a week or two for Felix to get caught up on his homework after methodically plastering all his loosened pieces back together like fragments of bone unearthed. He’s actually used to it at this point. 

The echoing dark space in his chest is bigger, but he’s been living around a void for a while now. What’s another wound? It sucks, but he’s used to standing tall despite hurting. 

Jisung’s sending him very sweet, very insistent text messages almost every day. _I know that it’s weird, but the sooner we get through it the sooner we can be friends._ Things so sincere, so unfair, like Jisung doesn’t get that Felix was going to love him for as long as he let him. _I am not gonna let you out of my life!!!_ Things like, _I just want to skip to the part where you and hyunjin are BFF._

_I want to see you soon. I miss you. We can talk about anything._

Felix thinks he hates soulmates. He thinks the world would be a better place if no one was swept up in the foreverness of something. Without this great joy, maybe some things wouldn’t hurt so much. 

Eventually, after several blurry weeks, Felix gives in and goes to one of the group hangs Jisung is always asking him to, if only to make one person happy. 

It’s at the house of the friends who always throw the big parties, the other Korean international students that Jisung hit it off with really well. Felix never got so close with them, because when they all relax and start speaking full Korean, Felix stops following really fast. It’s sort of his fault, probably, in some way, that he didn’t ever learn much of anything. 

Felix, of course, knows that this is going to be hard. He knows it is going to be upsetting. But when he gets there, it’s much worse than he expects. 

The house, his friends talking, saying hello, a particular chalkiness to the air as everyone tries to pretend they aren’t worried about this. But Felix is numb, and the noise parts around him like water as he approaches Jisung and his soulmate, who are sitting on the couch in the living room. 

Hyunjin is tall when he stands up to say hello, and he seems a bit serious, and he is perfectly beautiful, with the nicest long hair. Felix let Jisung cut his hair a while ago, just for fun, so it’s like, long on one side and short on the other. Felix really likes it, actually, he’s been liking it, but he’s all-over embarrassed about himself next to somebody like that. He must look very ugly and small and sad. 

Hyunjin is really like a taller, hotter, cooler version of Felix. Next to him, Jisung looks hotter and cooler too. It hits him all at once like sound coming back into the room. Suddenly, Felix is no longer numb. 

Jisung was just practicing with Felix. Jisung was always this cool, and Felix didn’t notice. That’s embarrassing. Just like Chris. How dare he even think about it.

Felix hears himself introducing himself. He sees Hyunjin be very gracious and look very sorry, but not know what to say. Felix feels dizzy, but he keeps smiling anyway. No one would hold it against him if he was upset, of course, but if he shows a bit of it, maybe he’ll show it all, and then maybe everyone will wonder why he’s in so much pain, why it’s so big and ugly and old. Nobody needs to watch Felix realize that this will never be him. Nobody needs to watch him figure out what it really looks like for Jisung to listen to someone.

Yeah, Felix feels like a bug on the floor. He waits for the interaction to end and then he goes and braces himself against the kitchen counter. 

He hasn’t even caught his breath yet when Jisung finds him. 

He hops up on the opposite counter, dangling his cute little feet. Felix misses him so much. Hates him a little bit. Is so jealous that his throat hurts. Jisung furrows his brows and says, “Hi.” 

“Hi, Jisung,” Felix says, all dry. “I’m sorry. This is just a lot. I’ll be okay.” 

Jisung nods his head. He says, “I just wanted to say I’m happy you made it. Even though it’s a lot.” 

“Okay,” Felix says. His head’s really spinning. It’s much worse now that he has a face for Hyunjin. It’s actually all hitting him now, that this is real. Jisung is for someone else. It was just a nightmare before, piled on top of other nightmares, until he stood under Hyunjin and met his eyes. Felix is being left behind again, by another person for whom he would empty himself to nothing. 

He is the loneliest person alive. 

Jisung says, “Hey, are you okay? You look like you might throw up.” 

Felix swallows. He was thinking the same thing, but he shakes his head. “No, I’m okay.” 

Nope. He’s just gonna hang out with Jisung and his soulmate, and he’s gonna make it be okay. 

Felix hates Hyunjin, at first. He’s overconfident, and not even very nice. He doesn’t touch Jisung as sweetly as Felix did, he doesn’t listen as eagerly, he’s not nearly as patient. But Jisung looks at him in a way he never looked at Felix, and that’s that. 

The goal is to get used to it. To be part of this friend group, even though it’s hard. To work through it as well as he can. That’s what Jisung wants, and Felix wants Jisung to have what he wants. What Felix wants is to crawl into bed and never get back out, and he knows that this is ultimately better than that. 

So he starts ghosting along more often. Lonely, always lonely, like a whole silent little world of his own, but he’s always invited, and he begins to fill his little space with a bit more belonging. Crushed into the wall in a booth with everyone, or sitting on the couch while everyone watches something at Minho and Seungmin’s house. Felix is off, he’s thinking about nothing, or else he’s trying not to get upset, but he does the same things at home, too. 

Hyunjin and Jisung met in Sydney, but they’re from the same small town in South Korea. Hyunjin moved here with his family near the end of high school, and he, like Jisung, speaks English really comfortably. But the two of them, together, speak mostly Korean, and it’s clearly deeper. Easier than it ever was for Jisung to speak with Felix. 

That, above all, makes Felix so jealous. Their ability to speak, so fundamentally, in a language that is more comfortable for them together. Everything is deeper for them, and the people around them can only barely understand. It’s effortless with soulmates. No thinking.

And here Felix is, on the outside, trying to parse their words, catching only a few, and wishing Chris were here.

♡

Felix waited for signs rather than ever giving his own. 

Because Chris, between the two of them, is the one with the strength, Felix waited for something to hold onto. Because Felix is the one who is still figuring it out, and Chris has had it handled for a long time. Because Felix holds things close, and he’s scared, and has always seen himself as the one who follows Chris’ lead. Felix is comfortable in Chris’ shadow. That’s when he feels safe. 

So, he waited for signs. 

What keeps him up at night, now that he’s alone, is how many signs he got. 

The time Chris tried to hold his hand on the boardwalk. 

Or, the time Chris bought them both tickets to a movie, and the clerk told them in that self-conscious, over-kind way to enjoy their date, and Chris just said, “Thank you,” and didn’t say anything else about it. 

All the times Felix caught Chris looking. All the times Chris caught Felix looking, too.

The time Chris knew that Felix was sick, even though they hadn’t spoken. 

What keeps Felix up now is wondering: could Chris always tell when Felix was about to call, too? Why did Chris always answer the door before Felix had a chance to knock? 

Was Felix wrong? Did they share emotions? 

Is Chris okay? Does he feel like this too? 

What is this pain for? 

♡

Nothing happens for a long time. 

Felix still tries, but he can’t always keep track of what exactly he’s trying to do. Sometimes he just goes from place to place.

On good days, he feels like a slug. Scooting forward very slowly, not feeling very much, retreating into himself when there’s danger around. On bad days there is no describing the kind of fearful nothing he feels. 

He still believes he was right. He still believes he won’t feel like this for too many more evers. 

♡

Felix is almost relieved when it’s Hyunjin who shows up on the front porch of Minho and Seungmin’s house. It’s a late spring night, and there’s a party inside, and it was just sort of loud, so Felix is taking a minute. 

Felix thought he wanted to be alone, but Hyunjin is okay. He’s pretty careful of Felix. Too careful, maybe? But while everyone else is still waiting, albeit patiently, for Felix to become normal, Hyunjin seems more than anyone else to understand that this might just be how it is. 

Hyunjin and Felix have been hanging out a little. Hyunjin wore Felix down, asking every time they saw each other if he was free sometime for coffee, if he drank coffee? If not, they usually had tea? Anyway, Hyunjin knew a cool place pretty close to campus. And if Felix was busy this week, Hyunjin could meet up next? Or the week after? 

Felix used to be really scared of Hyunjin, because he’s scared of everything, and because looking at Hyunjin makes him feel like he can see himself, too; all the things Hyunjin is that Felix isn’t. Beautiful. In love. Not having a really long breakdown that everyone can see, but that no one knows what to do about. 

But the thing about being in the middle of a really long public breakdown is that you eventually don’t have any dignity left. So, as far as _hating_ Hyunjin went, Felix couldn’t manage that for very long. Eventually, malleable as snow, he agreed to meet him for lunch. 

They sat by a sunny window in a quiet cafe, and Felix learned that Hyunjin was shockingly sensitive.

“Really,” he said, treating Felix like a person with things that mattered to say. “The most expensive makeup never works best. I would die for my $4 lipgloss. I will never change.” 

“I got a really nice eyeliner as a gift once,” Felix said, nodding in agreement. “From my sister. It was too thick, or something. It didn’t go on as well as the cheap stuff. I feel bad, but I never use it.” 

Messed up, but it was the most normal Felix had felt in a long time. 

“I think you’re cool,” Hyunjin said later, with so much unfettered sincerity he almost seemed stupid for a second, and that was when Felix understood why he and Jisung could be in love. “So I want to be your friend.” 

Felix sighed. He gave in. “Then let’s be friends.” 

Hyunjin looked really happy. He said, “Friends.” Then he took a sip of his iced coffee, tucked his hair behind his ear, and thought of another thing to say about makeup. 

Now, at the front steps on a balmy, humid night, Hyunjin says, “Can I sit?” 

Felix looks up at him and nods. He realizes he’s kind of curled up into himself, protective, and tries to arrange himself more normally. 

“Do you mind if I, if I talk?” Hyunjin asks. 

Felix nods again. 

“Okay,” Hyunjin says. “Well, I know you’re taking it really hard, and I want to say I’m really sorry about that. Um, but it means a lot to me that you still hang out with us. It means a lot to me that you keep showing up for Jisung even though he hurt you.” He’s speaking so carefully, using his hands, like he’s been thinking about this. 

“It’s okay,” Felix says. 

“I want to explain to you that this is different,” Hyunjin says. “Being soulmates. I want to tell you. I didn’t understand it was different until it happened. You know, I broke up with someone too.” 

Felix feels at the same time caged and rapt. 

“It’s so big. I’ve never felt anything like it. Jisung, is, maybe not my type? But I… wow. I can’t explain it. It’s too much. Too big. I have to be with him. I like him so much.” 

That makes Felix cry, but he tries to hold it in. It’s been a rough week; his armor is thin. One tear could be okay. 

“I used to feel kind of odd here,” Hyunjin goes on. “I wanted to go home. I was gonna move back to Suncheon next year. But now, I don’t know. Wherever Jisung wants to go. That’s being at home.” 

Felix understands that too well. He’s trying so hard not to think about it, but Hyunjin is right. It’s just like being at home, the only way Felix has ever felt it. He puts his face in his hands and tries to swallow his sob, but it doesn’t work very well. 

Hyunjin puts a hand on Felix’s back, very softly. He says, “I’m really sorry this happened to you. I know you love him. I feel guilty.”

Felix is really crying, but he’s trying to reel it in. He doesn’t want to do this like this, with Hyunjin, on the front porch of someone else’s house. 

Hyunjin gently rubs his back until he can choke out, “It’s not your fault.” 

“I’m sorry,” Hyunjin says again. 

“No,” Felix says as steadily as he can. “No, it’s okay. I know.” For some reason he says, “I know what it’s like.” 

Hyunjin rubs his back. “You know?” he asks quietly. 

“I, yeah,” Felix says, carried out on a sob. “I know.”

Felix can feel the alarm in Hyunjin’s hand. “Jisung?” 

Felix is leaned over himself again, head resting on his knees. He shakes his head and says, “No, not Jisung. An old friend.” He’s pulling the tears back in, he’s making them stop. 

“Why… who? Is it the guy Jisung told me about?” 

“Probably,” Felix says wetly. “His name is Christopher.” 

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Why are you not together?” 

Felix takes a couple of big breaths. He wipes his face off on the knee of his pants. He sits up. He says, “Because it’s just me. He doesn’t feel the same. I’m, I guess, breaking the bond now.” 

“Oh. I’m so sorry,” Hyunjin says, low and soft, so honest. Felix finally looks over at him, and he looks so sad. He looks like he understands exactly how Felix feels. Which is impossible, because he has his soulmate. God, and Jisung is inside, and he’s gonna know all about this. 

“Please don’t tell Jisung,” Felix manages. 

Hyunjin gives him a complicated look, and Felix begs, “I know, I know you have to tell him, but please don’t. For me.” 

Finally, Hyunjin says, “I’ll… I’ll try. But I won’t lie.” 

Felix accepts that. It’s fair. It just, it would be so embarrassing. He’s so embarrassed. He’s trying so hard, and not talking about Chris, not having Chris hang over him for the last few months is the only way that he’s been able to get this far. 

This far. Crying on the front porch of someone else’s house, telling secrets to his ex-boyfriend’s soulmate. Whatever.

Hyunjin asks, carefully, “I’m just wondering. How do you know it isn’t returned?” 

“Because he tells me everything. Because I tried to talk to him about it and he moved away.” 

“But are you sure he doesn’t feel it?” 

“I mean,” Felix says. He can’t explain it, he just knows. In the same way he knows when Chris is coming over or calling or going to bed, even still, though it’s much weaker than it used to be. “Yeah.” 

“You don’t have the link?” 

“I do, not him,” Felix says. He sniffles and wipes his face with the back of a hand. 

“How can you have a one-way link? You can just read his mind? Does it work that way?” 

“I’ve read, it happens,” Felix says. “It has happened.” 

“I’m saying this because I remember, Jisung told me that he’s not usually jealous of anything. He said you really like touching people, but it’s never weird, except that time. He said it was different than how you just, you used to want hugs.” 

“You know a lot about Jisung.” 

“Well, he can’t shut up,” Hyunjin smiles. 

Felix laughs wetly. Hyunjin keeps rubbing his back as he catches his breath. They sit for a minute. 

Then Hyunjin, like he can’t let it go, like he’s invested in this, says, “Can you do me a favor? I just want to see.” 

“What?” 

“Call him. Christopher.” 

“Oh,” Felix says, heart jumping up into his throat. It’s awful, but it’s the sharpest thing he’s felt in months, almost exciting. “No, no, I can’t do that. We haven’t talked since June.” 

“Will you trust me?” Hyunjin says, and he looks Felix in the eyes really sincerely, and he’s very pretty and Felix is still so jealous of him, though it gets farther and farther from the real reason and morphs into a vague, pointless sense of inadequacy against him. This is Jisung’s soulmate, the person who, ostensibly, has gotten in the way of Felix’s happiness. 

But he means it. And Felix does trust him, if it comes to that. He trusts him with Jisung. 

And calling Chris, well. Hyunjin is begging him to. He doesn’t have to say no. 

He could, if he wanted. He could hear Chris’ voice, right now. He hasn’t even let himself think of that in months, but it rings in his ears as soon as he imagines it. His little laughs, his concerned sounds. His tripping-over-words. Okay, yeah. 

Felix pulls out his phone, and Hyunjin whispers, “Thank you,” and hovers over his shoulder. 

There are no recent calls, no recent texts. Felix has to go into his contacts and type him in. Just saved under Chris, nothing else. He couldn’t bring himself to delete it. 

Then, just before he presses the call button, Hyunjin snatches Felix’s phone from his hands. 

“What?” Felix says, roiling inside, spinning. “Why did you do that?” 

“Trust me,” Hyunjin says, holding Felix’s phone out of reach. “Trust me.” 

There’s a tense moment, Hyunjin looking at Felix’s phone, Felix unsure of what’s going on, losing trust by the second. 

Then, Chris texts him. 

_Hey little one._

“Little one?” Hyunjin asks, eyes open all the way. “You’re kidding me.” 

“He, he says that because, because I said I didn’t like little brother,” Felix says. He’s really confused. 

“He texted you 25 seconds after I took your phone.” 

“He texts me sometimes,” Felix says, but that’s actually not true anymore. 

“Felix,” Hyunjin says, like he’s got something so important to express and he really needs to find the words to say it, “This isn’t normal. He heard you.” 

“No,” Felix says.

“If you need a sign, here’s your sign. What’s stopping you? Why do you feel like shit all the time? Would you feel worse if he said no?” 

“No,” Felix barely says, swallowing the tears hard. 

“Tell him now. He’s about to call you.” 

Felix grabs his phone back and says, “I can’t, Hyunjin. I can’t. I can’t right now.”

“Okay, sorry,” Hyunjin says, like he knows he pushed it too far, but not like he’s really sorry. 

Felix has to go. He has to go now. But on his way out, Hyunjin says, “Just think about it, okay? You still deserve to be happy.” 

Felix thinks about it.

And that same night, after his parents go to sleep, he leaves a note and steals his dad’s car. 

He drives all night to get to Brisbane. It’s long and lonely and he stops only for gas and a bottle of water when he realizes he’s been crying so much that he’s given himself a pounding headache. 

He chugs it, wishes he had more, but keeps driving. 

Three hours later, he stops for gas again and two bottles of water to make up for the new tears. He’s so tired that he wonders if he needs to stop, if he’ll pass out, but no, he couldn’t sleep. He has to keep going. If he stops, he’ll stop forever. It’s two thirty six in the morning and he’s going to tell Chris the truth, regardless of how it is received. 

Hours slip through his fingers like sand, though he feels every kilometer as if he’s running it himself. The sky is black and then blacker for a long, long time, and then for so long that Felix is afraid there will be no sunrise, and then, finally, the faintest tinge of blue. Suddenly, day breaks on the coast and the sun rises bright and gold, and he’s close. He feels insane. He should turn around, but he’s far too close now. 

He’s already in the city before he realizes that he doesn’t know his way around, and he doesn’t know where Chris lives. It’s seven in the morning, but, if Felix is right, Chris was up all night too. 

Maybe. Maybe he was up. Felix has been thinking about it the whole time, and he still doesn’t know. It’s 50/50, he thinks. Maybe. Maybe maybe. But maybe is enough right now. Felix is so tired of losing. He’s so tired of being small. He’s tired of things happening to him, lashing him against the rocks over and over. It’s his turn to do something. 

Chris answers his phone right away. He sounds so tired, but not just-woken-up. “Hello? Felix? What’s happening?” 

“Text me your address right now.” 

“What?” 

“Just do it,” Felix says. Then he hangs up, scared of the way the light of Chris’ voice spread through his whole body on heartbeats. 

Chris texts him the address as well as a bunch of other stuff that Felix doesn’t read. Felix types it in. It’s 40 minutes away. 

No more crying, now it’s just roiling anxiety, nausea and dots in his vision that grow with every minute. He’s shaking a little, but maybe that’s because he’s exhausted. By the time he’s five minutes away, he’s drawing shallow breaths around the pearl in his stomach. 

Felix parks across the street from the address, right behind Chris’ corolla. The tires still look fresh, even though it was a lifetime ago that Felix took him to change them.

The house is nice, it looks nice from the outside. This neighborhood is sweet. Felix looks at himself in the visor mirror of his dad’s stolen car, which he’s gonna start getting angry calls about any minute. He looks like hell. So ugly. Hair looks bad. Eyes are sunken, tired, red. It’s obvious that he’s been awake for 24 hours, that he’s been crying and crying. It’s, maybe he can admit it. It’s obvious that he’s been upset for a long time. He looks more tired than just a sleepless night, more sad than just the tears. He looks threadbare. There’s no help for it, so he flips the visor back up. 

He should turn back, but in his old sweater and sweat pants, his sneakers, he forces himself out of the car. Locks it, like that matters. 

He crosses the street and goes to the front door. Before he can knock, it opens.

Of course it’s Chris. Of course it is. He probably heard the car, he was probably waiting, he probably saw, but that doesn’t feel like all of it. 

On the front step with the door hanging open, Chris is not waiting, not asking questions before wrapping Felix up in the hug he has needed for months. He pulls Felix’s head into his shoulder, strong arms holding him in, making him safe, and it is like rising from the dead. Felix is crying, but he can’t even hear himself. Chris is too, he notices, but not frantic and horrible like Felix. He’s just drawing deep breaths as tears fall onto his shirt. 

They stand like that for a long time, until Felix catches his breath, until it settles in that he is really here, and they are really, finally, touching. 

Finally, without letting go, without moving an inch, Felix says, in such a hoarse voice, “Can I please come in?” 

Chris laughs, wet and sad. “Of course you can.” 

♡ 

Chris makes tea. A roommate moves around in the kitchen, but doesn’t acknowledge them except for saying an awkward little hello to Felix. It’s hilarious for some reason. That people are just grabbing their granola bars and going to school in times like this. 

Then it’s just them, sitting at the table as the sun peers through the blinds, falls on Chris’ nose and cheek, his shoulder in his black t-shirt. It’s hard not to reach out and touch him, but just being this close helps. 

“Did you sleep?” Felix asks. The mood has gotten hesitant, unsure. They are both waiting for the next thing, but Felix won’t let it stay like that this time. 

“No,” Chris says. 

“Cool,” Felix says. He doesn’t know if that’s admitting it or not. Being here is admitting enough; he’s crazy, he needs Chris, he can’t be sorry about it anymore or it’ll kill him. 

Chris is at a loss for words, searching for something. He’s looking at Felix with so much love, his eyes shiny and his nose pink from crying. Maybe just crying because Felix was crying, and that’s always been hard for him. 

Here it is again. If Chris, who tells Felix everything, hasn’t said it by now, then maybe this isn’t it. Maybe Felix just drove ten hours for a hug that’s gonna take him the rest of his life to heal from. 

“Why… why are you here?” Chris asks timidly. “I mean, I’m happy to see you, I’m sorry. Thank you for coming. I think… I think we needed to talk. But you drove all night?” 

Felix nods. “Um,” he says, shaking so much, brittle. “Um. I needed you.” 

“Felix,” Chris says, and it’s almost a sob. “You have to tell me. You have to say it. It has to be you. Why did you come here?” 

Felix can feel it spilling from Chris’ body into his own. Eagerness to hear it, to know for sure. Finally, deranged, with all Felix’s strength, he whispers, “We’re soulmates.” 

Chris’ face crumples, so relieved that he looks hurt. He reaches out, almost blindly. Grabs at Felix’s shirt, his arm, pulls him in with a warm palm spread on Felix’s back. “Thank you. Thank you, Felix. Thank you.” 

Felix has heard that there’s a moment. It’s like real magic, impossible to describe, the heart lifting as high as it's ever been as you look into the eyes of the person you are supposed to be with forever. Your brain dumps oxytocin, serotonin, you feel tingly all over, warm and healthy, awake and alive and perfect. You look at your person and you know, and they know, and you know together, and you know what it feels like to share a thought and a heart with someone. They say that, for a moment, you can see the future, but maybe they just mean that you feel for the first time that there is a future. You always remember where you were that day, what you were wearing, what it felt like to be standing where you stood, how time slowed to give you the chance to taste it. 

Felix thought he’d missed his moment, because it had taken so long, or because he’d always adored Chris so much that he didn’t notice the tipping point. He used to imagine when it might have been: that afternoon when Felix was seventeen and he was crying after a bad day at work and Chris let him put his head in his lap and ran his fingers through his hair. Or the time Chris showed up in his stupid car to pick Felix up from school in year 12, and everybody saw, and Felix felt so cool saying goodbye to his friends while Chris was yelling out the window for him to hurry up. Or just this one afternoon when they were eating gelato at the beach and they couldn’t stop laughing. If he thinks too hard, he can find magic in any of it. 

But this one is the moment. There is no mistaking it. 

Stupid for there to be space between them right now, when their bodies are made to fit together without any space in between. Felix crawls into Chris’ lap and hugs him so the light pours back into him like clear water. 

“Wow,” Chris says. “Wow. It’s happening.” 

Felix sighs. His strings have snapped. He isn’t doing anything but holding Chris now. He isn’t anything but warm and tucked-in. 

“I really have you.” 

“I have you,” Felix mumbles, slumped over into Chris’ perfect, sturdy chest.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Chris says into Felix’s neck. 

“You were supposed to tell me,” Felix says, hiccupy, face in Chris’ shirt, good boy soap smell. 

“I couldn’t,” Chris whispers. “I, you’re. You’ve been my little sibling for so long.” 

“You’ve been my big bro,” Felix agrees, “But not for a while, right?” 

“No, not for a while,” Chris says. 

Felix whispers, “You smell so good. When did you know?”

A big sigh. “About two years ago,” Chris says. “I think. Right before you graduated.” 

Felix groans. He’s still weepy, but there’s a lightness in him too, sitting in Chris’ lap in the morning light. He wiggles and says, “Two years. This is terrible, Christopher.” 

Chris pushes Felix back a bit so he can look at him. He looks ragged and tired, too: so pale, with deep dark circles under his eyes. He says, “Felix, this is terrible. Can I kiss you?” 

“Yeah,” Felix whispers, but they’re already doing it. 

♡

Felix left his phone in the car, so Felix’s dad starts calling Chris.

Chris answers, puts it on speaker. “Hi, Mr. Lee,” he says. 

“Hi Christopher. I’m sorry to ask this, but have you been in touch with Felix?”

“Yep,” Chris says. “I have him here.” 

“Can you put him on?” Felix’s dad sounds frantic, and Felix isn’t ready to get in trouble. He shakes his head. 

Chris nods to Felix and says, “He crashed out pretty hard.” He’s actually better with Felix’s parents than Felix is. “He’s safe, though. Just resting.” 

“Chris, I’m sorry to put this on you, but he stole my car last night. He left a note that said he had an emergency and he had to go see you. I’m very worried about him. He’s been… I’m sorry, he’s been really different lately, and I know he trusts you, so just… if there’s anything… if he tells you anything.” 

Chris looks at Felix with a question. _Tell him?_

Felix shrugs. _Up to you._

Chris says, “Well, I think he feels better after talking it out. And I think he’ll be ready to tell you about it whenever he gets home.” 

Felix’s dad exhales audibly. “That’s… that’s great.” 

“Yeah. I think he’s okay.” Chris is squeezing Felix’s upper arm idly. 

“Alright. Well. Tell him he needs to bring me back my car.” 

“I’ll tell him. Bye.” 

He hangs up and looks at Felix. “Been different lately, huh?” he asks. 

Felix says, “I haven’t been great.” He almost laughs at the understatement. 

“Me neither.” Chris looks like he’s gonna say more, but then he yawns. “Can we actually sleep? You kept me up all night.” 

That sounds like the nicest thing in the world. All the fight gone, soreness sopped up. Felix is sleepy now. He lets Chris lead him by the hand to his room, which he’s only seen from the inside of a camera before. He throws his shirt and pants on the ground, crawls into the bed next to Chris, and lets him hold him in his warm, perfect hands.

  
  


Felix wakes up after a couple hours, so thirsty. He leaves Chris sleeping and goes to the kitchen. 

The same roommate from this morning is there, impassively observing Felix as he wanders in wearing Chris’ shirt. Felix says, “Hi, sorry, I’m Felix. I’m visiting Chris.” 

“Felix, huh?” asks the guy. 

“Yeah, and you are?” 

“Changbin,” the guy says, and he doesn’t seem pleased about it. “Are you the Felix who’s been spurning Chris all year?” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“Cups are over there.” Changbin points at a cabinet. 

Felix mutters a thank you and fills a glass from the tap as Changbin says, “I assume you figured it out, right? If you’re here and you just came out of his room.” 

Felix nods. Sits down with his water across the table from Changbin and his open laptop. “What’s been going on?” Felix asks. He wants to know, but he doesn’t want to force it out of Chris. He knows it’s embarrassing; he doesn’t want to explain himself either. But Changbin looks like he wants to spill. 

“Nah, nah,” Changbin says. “Don’t look at me with your big sparkly eyes like that. That only works on him. I don’t owe you shit after what you did.” 

“What did I do?” Felix asks. It’s amazing how funny this moment feels, how much he wants to laugh. Chris is sleeping and Felix will go back to him soon. 

“According to Chris, kicked him out of Sydney, immediately got a boyfriend, told him he was hurting you by getting too close? Among other things. You got rid of the other boyfriend, right?” 

“He met his soulmate in October,” Felix says, like it’s someone else’s gossip.

“Ouch. Does Chris know that?” 

Felix shakes his head. “But he knows I’m his.” 

“Making him throw up every day for eight months isn’t very _his_ of you.” 

“He was throwing up?” Felix asks. 

“Constantly.” 

“I didn’t know that.” 

“Guess you both were keeping things from each other.”

Felix thinks he likes Changbin, but he’s also unsettled by him. He finishes his water and says, “Um. I have to get back in there.” 

“The first 24 hours are supposed to be really important,” Changbin says by way of farewell. 

  
  


Chris doesn’t really want to talk about it, but Felix gets the gist. He never had that much homework, he just felt so sick all the time that he could barely do anything. But Felix had made it so clear that Chris was feeling it alone that he just endured it. 

“I tried to tell you,” Felix says, back in Chris’ bed again. He traces his chin with a finger. 

Chris’ eyes are so sparkly, and now that Felix can do it, he has to cross the distance and kiss him. He pulls back and looks at Chris again, holding their tangled fingers between them. Chris’ hand is big and pale and veiny. Looks like it would be cold, but it’s perfectly warm around Felix’s small fingers. Chris says, “I’ve been trying to, to show you.” 

“You show me,” Felix mutters. “You always show me. You always have.” 

“You’ve always been my favorite,” Chris says. He kisses Felix’s hand, then leans in and kisses his cheek. Then he laughs airily and says, “This is great.” He kisses the top of Felix’s ear. 

“I thought it would be awkward,” Felix says, finding Chris’ mouth again. “After so long. But it’s easy.” 

“I love you,” Chris says. 

“You’re,” Felix says, but then he’s cut off by a kiss. “You’re not off the hook,” he gets out. Chris kisses him. “For leaving me.” Chris kisses him again, and again, and then Felix kisses Chris, and then Chris has a hand on Felix’s face and they’re kissing deeply. Then they pull back, and Felix says, “I love you, too.” 

  
♡   
  


When Felix gets home with his dad’s car, Chris is in the driver’s seat, and there’s kind of a hubbub about it. 

Felix has new eyes, and he realizes that, good or bad, this is the first thing he’s actually done in months, and no one knows what to expect from him now that he’s back. He isn’t sorry, even though he’s supposed to be. 

After so much fanfare, Felix has trouble getting the words out to explain himself, but Chris doesn’t. He tells Felix’s parents that they’re soulmates, and then he tells Rachel, and she says, “Oh, gross.” 

Chris throws his head back and laughs while Felix tries to melt her with his eyes. Rachel says, “Now it makes sense why you’re here in the middle of the semester. After ignoring my texts for months, by the way.” 

“It’s the weekend,” Chris waves off. “And um, sorry about that. I think I’ll be better about it now.” 

“It’s fine. But how are you gonna get home? You don’t even have your car, idiot.” 

Chris just smiles. “I’ll figure it out. This is more important.” He tips his head sideways so it bumps lightly into Felix’s. 

“It’s just gonna be like this now?” Rachel asks, pretending to be grossed out about it. But she can’t hold it for long, her best friend from high school and her little sibling, who have always been the closest. Finally, she says what she’s really thinking. “I kind of thought you two might be.” 

“Why didn’t you say so?” Chris asks, pulsing his fingers where he holds Felix’s hand. 

“Because you’re supposed to know. How am I supposed to know if you don’t know?” 

They actually talked about this on the drive back here. They stayed a night in Brisbane and headed out the next morning, so it was light the whole drive. Summer is really setting in; the world was green and bright, and Felix could have sat there for twice as long without wishing they were back. Before this, it had been a year since Felix and Chris had been able to sit in a car together for hours and hours, making each other laugh until it hurt, being terribly honest with one another. Except, this is the first time Felix has ever been able to be _really_ honest with Chris. 

And it was something they talked about. How did they not know? Why did it take so long, when they already knew they loved each other, before the rest of it came in? 

Chris said, “Well, I knew how I felt about you. But I couldn’t be the one to say it, because what if I was wrong? And you had to go on feeling like somebody you’d trusted to be, like, there for you. Was in love with you all along?” 

Felix sighed, but it was fluttery and relieved. “I just… you usually know what to do.” 

“I was willing to hold out,” Chris said. He was merging right so he could speed around a slow car, and Felix was looking at his hands on the wheel, so easy. His hair was falling in his eyes, and a small smile was resting on his face. As he merged back over, he glanced at Felix and couldn’t keep himself from smiling. “But you, like, went out of your way to reject me. So I figured, whatever it was, we weren’t gonna be together, and um, respecting your space was the best way I could… you know. Love you.” 

“But you got so sick.” 

“I would have gotten better eventually,” Chris said. like it wasn’t even a big deal. What a way to love someone. 

Then Chris said, “You were talking earlier about how it might have been hard for us to figure out because soulmates aren’t usually friends first.” 

Felix nodded. 

Chris said, “I always thought it was kinda the other way around.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Like, you said you thought it was complicated because usually the soulmate thing happens as soon as people meet. So it was weird for our bodies to figure out how to adjust to it. But I think, um, we weren’t originally meant to be soulmates.” 

“That sucks to think about,” Felix said with a smile. His life isn’t his life without this. 

“No, like, what if, I don’t know, what if whatever makes this happen to people. Figured out eventually that we were… I don’t know. We were kinda soulmates anyway.” 

“So were we or weren’t we, Christopher?” 

Chris laughed. It was hard to keep it in. “I just like to think about it. The universe looking at us and saying, _ah, if this is how they’re gonna be. Might as well give them to each other.”_

Felix was just overwhelmed. He took one of Chris’ hands off the wheel and squeezed it until Chris needed it back. 

Chris has to catch the train back to Brisbane the next day, which is horrible, but much less horrible now that they both know he isn’t going forever. Felix can definitely deal with the pain of distance now; it should barely even touch him since he knows there’s an end, now that he and Chris can say whatever they feel and text all day. 

They barely have time to do anything before Chris leaves; they go to Chris’ house for dinner and tell his parents about it. They have always loved Felix, and they seem less disappointed than Felix’s parents did, so they stay there for the night. 

Felix doesn’t look at his phone. He doesn’t tell anyone; he’s embarrassed about how much explaining there is to do. But just before Chris leaves, Felix remembers something. 

“Get a picture with me,” Felix says. 

“Of course,” Chris grins, leaning into frame. 

Felix snaps the picture, and then Chris has to get onto his train. 

It hurts, but Felix, for once, doesn’t feel the fist in his chest about it. He doesn’t even want to cry. He just takes one last tight, life-giving hug, and kisses Chris a little more passionately than he probably should do on a train platform, and moves Chris’ hair out of his eyes and whispers, “I’ll see you so soon.”

“Love you,” Chris says, for like the ten millionth time this weekend, but it still feels like birds. 

“Love you too,” Felix says, and then Chris goes away, with just his backpack, because he didn’t bring anything, because he didn’t need anything except for Felix. 

Felix does cry, just a little, after the train leaves and before he has it in him to head back home by himself, but it’s not really because he’s sad. 

Before he goes, he pulls out his phone. Ignores the messages from his friends. He doesn’t really read the previews, but it seems like Hyunjin told Jisung about their conversation on the front steps. A lifetime ago, but technically only 4 days. 

Instead of answering anybody, Felix sends the picture to Hyunjin, which he assumes will have the same effect. It’s not a great picture, they both look a little crazy, but Felix likes it. He doesn’t look tired anymore. Neither does Chris, with the world’s biggest grin on his face. Along with the picture, Felix sends the message: _look, we did it!_

**Author's Note:**

> i'm off social media right now but you can follow my twitter for important updates anyway, [right here](http://twitter.com/skzbigmuscles)
> 
> thanks again for reading


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